WHEN o’er the Wabash setting daylight smiles, | |
| And gilds, Vincennes, thy distant spire with gold, | |
| Why turns the pensive eye to yonder piles, | |
| Why lingers fancy on their hallowed mould? | |
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| The scene is passed, forever fled the day, | 5 |
| When chiefs, from Mississippi’s monarch tide, | |
| With Wabash sachems met in war’s array, | |
| And arm in arm each frantic foeman died. | |
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| Cold is their senseless dust; extinct and gone | |
| The eye of lightning and the pulse of fire, | 10 |
| The tongue that cheered the struggling warriors on, | |
| The arm that sought to conquer or expire. | |
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| In yon three rising mounds their bones repose, | |
| Together there recline the crumbling dead; | |
| They rest together, though they once were foes, | 15 |
| And clasp each other, though they once have bled. | |
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| Imagination loves to trace the scene, | |
| Ere Europe’s strangers trod this western shore; | |
| When Nature threw around her brightest green, | |
| And bade her mountains bloom, her billows roar; | 20 |
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| When naught in all this blooming waste was heard, | |
| Save huntsman’s loud halloo and whistling spear, | |
| Save soothing song of evening’s lonely bird, | |
| And trampling hoofs of flying herds of deer; | |
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| E’en now she views the crimson field of strife, | 25 |
| The frantic eye, that glared o’er scenes of death, | |
| The dusky chieftains and the glittering knife, | |
| The writhing lip, the quick, convulsive breath. | |
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| They fell, but not a thought to heaven arose, | |
| Nor mute confession of the lips was there; | 30 |
| They sunk to nature’s last and long repose, | |
| To earth no lingering look, to heaven no prayer. * * * * * | |
| Yon triple mounds that bloom o’er Wabash’ tide | |
| Instruct the inquiring footstep where they sleep; | |
| And many a swain shall linger on their side, | 35 |
| And many a thoughtful eye shall pause and weep. | |
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| For who can view the ashes that remain, | |
| And think what was, what is, and what must be, | |
| And yet refuse a tributary strain, | |
| Nor drop a tear to frail humanity? | 40 |
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| In western wave has sunk the golden day, | |
| The eagle’s wings his cloudcapt cliff regain, | |
| The tinkling flocks resume their homeward way, | |
| And pointed shadows wax along the plain. | |
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| Farewell, Vincennes, and Wabash’ crystal wave, | 45 |
| The nightly owl has pealed his boding cry; | |
| Farewell, ye three green tombs, that hold the brave; | |
| The world itself ’s a tomb, where all shall lie. | |
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